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He’s pushed himself too far. The skirmishers that had been terrorizing the roadways were handled as neatly as possible, but he’s far from unscathed: blood soaks into dark fabric, leaving his top sticky and uncomfortable, clinging to his skin in a way that Diluc despises. But he’s dizzy and his head is pounding with a fierceness that leaves his vision blurry, and he doesn’t have much thought to spare for minor discomforts.
“Diluc.”
Kaeya’s voice sounds more muffled than it should be, a bit farther away than just a few feet would suggest. Diluc looks at him, masking his expression despite how he feels moments from falling over.
“I’m fine,” he says. He doesn’t need to see Kaeya’s face clearly to imagine what reaction he’d find there.
“I’m sure,” Kaeya states simply, in a clear way that suggests that what Diluc has said is truly bullshit. Diluc’s stomach twists with nausea when he tries to track the flippant hand gesture that accompanies Kaeya’s words. “You certainly look the part of an esteemed gentleman right now, after all.”
Diluc snorts. Or at least he would, but the sound is more of a strangled grunt than not and he doesn’t have it in him to mind it in the moment.
“You need help.” Kaeya’s voice is missing any hint of tease or jest, a serious tone ringing in Diluc’s ears. “Quit being stubborn, will you? How bad are your wounds?”
Half of Diluc wants to tell him everything. From how he feels sick enough to expel his breakfast, to the unfamiliar chills that wrack his body despite how he tries to suppress the shudders, to the way Kaeya’s form gets a little more blurry with each second. The other part of him knows he’s been through worse—that he can take care of himself, pull himself together without having to rely on anyone’s aid. He doesn’t need to shoulder a debt—least of all one to Kaeya himself—and this glimpse of weakness is already leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
It’s that side of him that wins. Kaeya’s too close too suddenly in response to Diluc’s unintentionally extended silence, and his hand is reaching towards him, undoubtedly aiming to steady Diluc’s swaying frame. Diluc smacks it away and hisses, both in pain and in warning, and takes a staggering step back.
“I said I’m fine,” he growls even though the sound is weak, but Kaeya’s not listening, his expression something almost fearful. But something like that wouldn’t make any sense.
“Diluc, hey. Don’t move—”
Whatever he was starting to say melts in the fog that gums up Diluc’s thoughts. He shifts in an attempt to steady himself only to find all sense of stability snatched from him as his heel meets air and gravity snatches him from the edge of the cliff top.
He thinks he hears Kaeya call his name, but as darkness claims him, he can’t be so sure.
He wakes up to rolling thunder and the sound of lightning crashing in the distance.
The pain in his head is less of a thrashing and more of an aching throb now, but it still is worse than his average headache. His limbs feel heavy; he doesn’t want to think, much less move.
“You’ve gotten more reckless these past years, huh.”
Kaeya’s voice is clearer than it had been the last time Diluc remembers hearing it. Closer, too. Diluc muffles a groan when he turns towards it, his eyes squinting against the dim, flickering fire light. He’s closer than Diluc would usually like, his stretched out leg quite nearly brushing Diluc’s cheek. If he could, he’d push himself away, if only to breathe easier in the slight amount of space it’d allow.
Instead, he finds himself looking up at Kaeya, taking in the serious expression and the shadows that flicker along his face. Diluc knows that the invisible weight on his chest that makes it increasingly hard to breathe isn’t Kaeya’s doing, but the hairs on the back of Diluc’s neck raise all the same.
For better or worse, Kaeya doesn’t seem to notice.
“Going out and taking up fights when you’re this sick is new, even from you. Trying to get killed?”
It isn’t the first time Kaeya’s lectured him—Diluc is well acquainted with all kinds of tones Kaeya takes, even the ones he’d rather not be—but it’s the first time in a long while that it’s been accompanied by a gentle hand against his forehead, the touch all but sweet aside Kaeya’s huffing tone. Diluc can hear him mumble something beneath his breath; he doesn’t try to figure out what it is, instead working some amount of moisture into his mouth in an attempt to form words.
“Where are we?” is what Diluc manages, and the exasperation in Kaeya’s hefty sigh is palpable.
“A cave.” His tone is flat, not a sliver of pretense to be found in his words. “Couldn’t drag you all the way back to Mondstadt in the rain after a fall like that, now could I?”
Diluc blinks slowly, Kaeya’s words stringing together slowly. A fall? Right, he remembers something like that. A quick preliminary stretch of his limbs reassures him that nothing’s broken—or something like that, at least. His muscles scream in an attempt to convince him otherwise, seizing in a way that keeps him lying down instead of trying to push himself up as he’d intended to. Kaeya’s hand pushing down on his shoulder works in its favor.
“Don’t get up. Not for at least another few hours.”
Hours? “And stay out here?”
“Now, now, don’t get whiny. You’ve done it plenty of times before, I’m sure. No harm in doing it again, hm?”
Diluc huffs, but the energy to protest is absent in the face of his body’s persistent protests. As his eyes narrow, he tries to allow the idea of staying all but incapacitated in a place where dangers could easily creep up on them to settle against his diligent nature.
Kaeya must notice. That, or he’s developed a tricky skill of being able to read Diluc’s mind, which Diluc doesn’t appreciate much.
“Sheesh, do I seem so unreliable? No one’s coming out here, Diluc. Would I have to go stand watch for you to get some rest?”
Diluc closes his eyes, a soft sigh slipping from his lips as he allows himself to sink further against the ground. “No,” he mumbles, too tired to fight. “But it’s cold.”
“That’s what fevers do,” Kaeya sighs after a slight pause. Diluc represses another shudder that runs down his spine. “You’re burning hotter than ever right now. No need for more heat, trust me.”
Trust is a strange thing between them, Diluc thinks. He’s never truly shaken the threads of it from their youth away, the instinctive notion ever-present in Diluc’s actions whenever Kaeya’s around. It was there earlier, too; Diluc’s quite used to relying on no one but himself, but fighting alongside Kaeya still comes just as naturally as it had back then. Still, part of trusting Kaeya is knowing he can’t always be trusted—that, too, Diluc is well familiar with.
But this—allowing Kaeya this weakness, leaving himself in Kaeya’s hands with little way to resist? For as much as he’d like to, he just as well grows unsure at the thought.
Kaeya’s hand is still cool and nice against Diluc’s forehead. Despite himself, Diluc leans into it, closing his eyes. The sound of the fire crackles in the silence that falls between them, the atmosphere oddly comfortable despite the discomforts his body forces onto him. He grits his teeth each time another twinge of pain or another chill courses through him, each time more prepared to shoulder some quip from Kaeya than the last. But Kaeya never does anything of the sort; not until his gaze trails from the fire and toward Diluc’s face and he catches Diluc’s half-lidded stare.
“Hm?” Is all Kaeya prompts. Diluc finds his tongue loose despite its heaviness.
“Why are you staying?”
Muted surprise washes over Kaeya’s shadowed face, as though the question presented to him was one he would’ve never anticipated, but Diluc simply stares at him, waiting for an answer. Instead of one, he gets a question in turn, his head cocked slightly to the side.
“Why would I leave?”
It’s an answer in itself, albeit a simple one that takes much too long to register through Diluc’s sluggish thoughts. But it’s satisfying in some way that leaves a calm feeling behind, enough so that Diluc feels a strange twang of reluctance when Kaeya stands and stretches.
“It seems dear Master Diluc is tired of me already.” The same sort of flourish that Kaeya does when around others is here now, winding through his slender figure. Though everything seems a touch off, like he’s not quite awake, Diluc knows he isn’t imagining the slip of bitterness in Kaeya’s tone. “I’ll go check the traps outside to see if there’s any hope of dinner tonight, then. Do get some rest, will you?”
His words move as slow as time itself does. As Diluc processes it, he listens to the rain pouring outside, the sound of it all too loud in his ears.
He remembers a time years ago, where the only thing the sound of rain couldn’t drown out was the panicked beating of his heart trying to work hard enough to keep another alive. A fearful part of him pictures having to do it again as the sky lights up once more, bringing a crashing sound along with it.
“Don’t,” he finds himself calling out. His voice feels small in the stretch of the cave, but Kaeya’s feet halt all the same. “Don’t leave.”
The look on Kaeya’s face is obscured, but Diluc doesn’t mind; his head is aching again and his eyes aren’t quite focused, his fingers twitching, wanting to reach out. He manages a little, though he doesn’t manage to grab hold of Kaeya’s ankle in any meaningful way.
Kaeya pauses. Then he sighs, tension leaving him in the hefty sound. He turns back towards Diluc and kneels, taking Diluc’s hand with just enough hesitation that Diluc almost misses it.
“Really... You’re still the same as you’ve always been, huh?”
“What’s that... supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing...” In an easy motion, Kaeya’s settled beside him again, and Diluc immediately notices how much cooler it feels. It doesn’t help with the cold—even Kaeya’s hands seems so, with one holding onto Diluc’s while the other brushes against his forehead again—but if that’s the price Diluc has to pay to keep Kaeya out of trouble, he doesn’t mind it at all. “After all this time, I can’t say it doesn’t look cute on you.”
There’s many things Diluc could say—he knows this instinctively, but he uses his energy to jerk Kaeya closer instead, drawing a surprised yelp from the calvary captain as he catches himself over Diluc’s body, one hand planted against stone in an attempt not to crash on Diluc completely.
Before Kaeya can so much as manage a sputter, Diluc murmurs, “Don’t leave me here.”
Kaeya blinks slow, searching Diluc’s face for something that Diluc’s sure he’ll find. Given how awful he feels, Diluc doesn’t much care what that might be, either.
“Stay here,” he mumbles again, meeting Kaeya’s eye despite the exhaustion that eats its way through his limbs, doing everything in its power to coax him into sleep. “Don’t leave again.”
Kaeya’s breath catches for a moment, subtle and under his breath. But then there’s a smile, soft though it is as he looks down at Diluc.
“I get it, I get it. I don’t remember you always being so demanding. Is this what fevers do to you now? I feel sorry for poor Adelaide.”
Diluc squeezes Kaeya’s hand. Kaeya offers a chuckle in return, shifting so that he’s settled next to Diluc instead of partially over.
“I’ll stay right here. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
There are plenty of things for him to worry about. He has things he should be doing that won’t wait for things like illness or injury, he’s sure; the fact that they’re stuck in a cave during a storm at night when there are undoubtedly Fatui trying to follow his tracks is also something for his thoughts to be caught up in, should he let them. But he’s tired and he doesn’t want to move, and Kaeya’s fingers have found themselves in his hair, stroking his head in the same way Diluc remembers doing when Kaeya was the one sick and groaning back in their childhood. He wonders if Kaeya remembers that, remembers all the promises Diluc made back then and how Kaeya’s words ring so close to them now.
“Promise,” Diluc mutters. Kaeya laughs again, the sound soft beneath the thunder outside.
“I’ll promise if you keep your end of the deal and sleep. How’s that sound?”
Doable, Diluc thinks, though the agreement comes as more sound than word as he makes a soft noise and closes his eyes, lulled by the hypnotizing pattern of Kaeya’s fingers in his hair. Next to him, Kaeya makes a sound of approval that clings to Diluc’s thoughts as they start drifting.
“Sleep well, Diluc.”
He does, with his hand still curled around Kaeya’s own and his dreams not plagued with troubles for the first time since he can remember. And when he feels the press of a kiss against his brow, coaxing him back to sleep after a set of chills nearly jostles him awake, they grow all the more sweeter.